Social Media Integration

Social Media is the term although large corporations and small businesses alike are embracing the power of it as it is increasingly being recognised as an essential element of any companies search engine optimisation or marketing strategies. It’s looking likely that 2010 is set to break many records in social media terms, for sign ups, searches, traffic, advertising revenue and much more.

 What is social media? 

You hear it banded about here, there and everywhere but very few can actually put their finger on the meaning of social media. Essentially it is the sharing of information in the form of, opinions, images, audio or video, otherwise known as content across a multitude of online digital media facilitators; websites.

Considering a social media strategy for your website can be daunting, but it needn’t be. By the end of this article we aim to show you what you should consider undertaking as part of your social media strategy, in most cases all if not most aspects of social media are relevant to your business and Kleverideas can help you achieve this.

 So what can it do for my business? 

Executed correctly a social media strategy can significantly increase brand awareness, drive new and targeted traffic to your website and promote customer loyalty, website owners adopting social media campaigns as part of their overall search engine optimisation strategy (SEO) can significantly improve upon their websites conversion rates.

In terms of business the information you share is more than opinions or ideas, it’s about your business the products you sell and the services you offer; it speaks volumes about your culture. So much so that many businesses are doing much more than incorporating social media into their SEO strategy they are adopting it as part of their overall marketing strategy as well, with many social media sites capitalising upon commercial adverts and product placements, these avenues are proving vital for business wishing to attract new, target audiences.

 Should I consider social media as part of my SEO strategy? 

This largely depends on how passionate you are about succeeding online, it should also be noted that a social media campaign should be adopted as part of your companies overall SEO (or marketing) strategy and not treated as a separate entity.

Ask yourself the following questions before considering undertaking a social media campaign

• Is my content interesting; does it read well, is it compelling, does it excite your visitors, the key here is ‘your visitors’ what reads well to you an expert in your field may not have the same appeal to your visitors.
• Is my site static or dynamic; simply put will you ever only have a set amount of content pages? Or will your website have fresh new content in the form of news articles or blog entries?
• Who forms my key target audience? Women under 30, men over 45 and so on. Your audience may determine where you expend most of your time in your social media campaign, not to say you shouldn’t overlook some areas, just make sure you get the right balance.
• Am I considered an authority in my field? Do my peers look to me for advice or support on any number of subjects?
• Do I regularly have special offers for my products or services?
• What format does most of my content take, text, images, audio or video?
• How much time can I set aside for managing my social media strategy?

You will note a lot of emphasis on content in many of the above questions. Content is king, not only in terms of your social media campaign but in terms of your search engine optimisation strategy as a whole. Before executing your campaign ensure you have addressed any short falls in your content. We can help you achieve more with your content through one of our copywriting (content) services, for more details please click here.

 What approach to social media should I take? 

Social media strategies are totally scalable; don’t bite off more than you can chew, think big, start small. Ramp your campaign up as and when it starts paying off, focus your efforts on those strategies that work, build upon them and make them work for you.

We concentrate below on those aspects of social media that are of most relevance to business, these should help you determine your organisations approach to its social media strategy.

Social bookmarking: publicly shared bookmarks, pages that are of interest or valued by users are promoted to social bookmarking websites. Internet users can search for related pages and rank by popularity, relevance or importance in order to filter results.

Examples: Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Google, Live.com, Facebook, Slashdot, Technorati, Stumbleupon, Spurl, Newsvine, BlinkList, Furl, AddThis and many more.

Social networking sites: think Facebook. Simply put, business can create groups or pages to showcase goods, services, offers and news, users can share, discuss and form opinions. Social networking is great for brand recognition, building a following and communicating frequent news or product updates.

Examples: Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Twitter

News aggregation / syndication services: an application (reader) that collates recent news or page content in summary form and publishes this information to news portals or websites. Other forms are available delivering relevant news direct to users’ desktops.

Wikis: If you are an authority in your chosen field you can create edit and share information about a subject or subjects.

Example: Wikipedia

Video sharing: If you create a lot of video content then you may wish to share this media on video share websites. Communities of video viewers comment, rate and share content across other internet sites.

Example: Youtube

Comparison websites: If you are confident about your products and the service you offer then consider displaying your products on comparison websites. Users compare price and service and leave feedback for both. Increase your brand awareness and encourage customer loyalty with listings on a product comparison site.

Examples: Google Product Search (formerly Froogle)

Photo sharing: upload your pictures to a profile, show the world your work and share with a global community.

Example: Flickr

There are many facets to social media and you can choose to implement some or all of them as part of your strategy. You can share & discuss, you can syndicate, you can interact and more, it’s your choice and is largely dependant upon the amount of time and effort you are willing to put in, but the rewards and return are worthwhile

 I want to get started with Social Media Integration? 

KleverIdeas can integrate any number of social media solutions into any new website. All integrations are tailored to your specific requirements and the majority have elements of automation which helps free your time up to keep running your business. In most cases we can even synchronise your updates to populate multiple social media websites at any one time.

So what are you waiting for, get started with your social media strategy today. Fill in the contact form below and one of our team will get back to you to discuss your requirements.

Social Media Website Contact Form